Issue Position: Health Care

Issue Position

The Fight for National Funding for Cancer Research and Treatment

It is a disease that will touch each of us in some way during our lifetime. Men today have a one in two likelihood of developing invasive cancer in their lifetime; women have a one in three chance. On average, each year there are almost 5,500 new cancer cases and over 2,300 cancer related deaths in Erie County. In Chautauqua County approximately 845 are diagnosed with cancer and 335 people die from cancer each year.

The National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health, is the Federal Government's principal agency for cancer research and training. Yet in recent years federal funding to the NCI has fallen desperately short. Brian knows that today's research becomes tomorrow's cure and will continue to be a tireless advocate for federal funding that supports groundbreaking discoveries at Cancer Institutes across the United States including Roswell Park, right here in Western New York.

In the 1970s, less than half of those diagnosed with cancer lived five years after diagnosis. Today, that rate has advanced to 65% for adults and 80% for children. Today more than 10 million cancer survivors live in America, a statistic unthinkable a generation ago --more people today live with cancer than are dying from it. Brian believes the elimination of all suffering and death due to cancer should be America's goal.

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